Man Charged with Sexual Assault of Female Relatives


Michael Thirion, charged with rape.

LEONARDTOWN — Police say that a man has been arrested on charges of sexual abuse of his own minor relatives over a period of years.
The Sheriff’s criminal division commander identified the victims of the unnamed suspect as being his relatives on Tuesday, without releasing his name, and said that the name of the man would not be released.
ST. MARY’S TODAY does not ordinarily identify the victims of sex crimes but always identifies those charged with such crimes and filed a public information request for the name of the man.
When a person is charged with rape, that person is brought to a public trial, without a bag over his head, and if convicted, that criminal is then posted, with a photo, on the sex offender registry.
Had the Sheriff’s Department not released the information that the victims were his own relatives, the general public would not have known who the victims were until the time of the trial.
Police say that on March 13, 2010 detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations conducted an investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of two females, currently 19 and 15 years of age in Mechanicsville, Maryland.
Police say that as a result of that investigation Michael Thirion, age 49, of Dogwood Court in Mechanicsville, Md. was arrested and charged with the offenses on March 14, 2010.
The sex abuse of the two young girls took place on April 1, 2003, according to Capt. Terry L. Black, commander of the joint criminal investigation unit of the Maryland State Police and the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department.
A peace order was filed and granted ordering Thirion to stay away from the home, from schools and from job sites of the family.
Not all prosecutions of those charged with family sexual assault end in convictions.
Charges of rape against a Town Creek man about 15 years ago involved allegations of recovered memories by a 16-year-old girl.
The trial of the girl’s father resulted in a hung jury, with the jury voting 11-1 for acquittal, after the girl, as well as experts for the prosecution, testified that she had 65 personalities.
The repressed memories were suddenly discovered after the girl had gone to her 17th psychologist and then made allegations that her father had raped her with a screw driver when she was two years old.
The trial was preceded by a court order to remove the girl’s two brothers from the home. Sheriff’s deputies showed up at the residence and handcuffed the young boys and forced them into police cars to carry out the order of the Judge.
Only after the trial was over and St. Mary’s States Attorney Walter Dorsey decided not to allow any further prosecution of the case by Assistant State’s Attorney Anne Emery.
The girl was admitted to a hospital which found that her mental state was caused by a thyroid imbalance which was treated by medication and the family was reunited and the girl recanted her allegations against her father.
It is very possible that the detectives bringing the charges in this case have a solid case in the charges against Thirion, unlike the police and prosecutors involved in the Town Creek case, and the suspect in this case did exactly as police are charging, but it would be a little more reassuring of the validity of this case were the date in question of the alleged rape not April Fool’s Day.
There are dozens of convicted sex offenders in all parts of Southern Maryland and their photos, names and addresses can be accessed by zip code on the internet on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry.
“We have a serious problem with the number of sex offenders in this area and experts are telling us that we can expect to see an exponential increase in this type of offender, due in a large part to the internet,” said St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron.
“I told the commissioners this week that we need the funding for working cyber net crimes, perhaps we can take cuts in some areas, but this is an area in which we need to devote our resources,” said Cameron.